


You Keep Me Warm

by Glitter_Bug



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Ficlet, Hardly Any Dialogue, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post S3, Short, and Steve helping, mostly just Billy trying to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitter_Bug/pseuds/Glitter_Bug
Summary: It’s been months since Starcourt, months since the Mindflayer, but Billy still has days like this, days when he’s cold all the time. When he just can’t get warm.And he knows that it’s cold outside, that Hawkins in the winter is all grey-rain and snowstorms and the kind of chill that makes its home in your bones.But this is different.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	You Keep Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

> A little ficlet all about Billy coping Post-Mindflayer.  
> Previously posted on Tumblr  
> Some reference to self-harm (see end notes for details)

It’s been months since Starcourt, months since the Mindflayer but Billy still has days like this, days when he’s cold all the time. When he just can’t get warm.

And he knows that it’s cold outside, that Hawkins in the winter is all grey-rain and snowstorms and the kind of chill that makes its home in your bones.

But this is different. 

This is nothing to do with the weather. Nothing to do with him still missing the California sunshine.

Because this kind of cold is under his skin. It’s in his brain, whistling through the pathways left open and exposed by a previous occupant. Crystallizing at his heart and pushing ice through his veins. Ghosting over the raised white scar tissue spread over his torso.

And no matter what Billy does, it won’t go away. Won’t let him sleep or eat or think about anything other than the cold biting at him from the inside out. 

The heating’s kinda unreliable in his new place. It cuts out half the time and makes a spluttering noise for the other half, and it always smells of burning rubber, but he keeps it on and cranks it as high as he can anyway. He huddles right next to the heater, presses up to it until his skin’s seared. Red and stinging. 

But he stays cold.

He tries sleeping under more blankets- piles of wool and fleece heaped on top of him- but it just makes him feel held down, constrained, and he panics, he thrashes and kicks them off in his sleep, waking with a scream in his mouth and tears soaking his face. 

He covers himself up in joggers, hoodies, socks, knitted hats pulled down low over his ears, layers upon layers. He pushes himself as much as he can, tries all the feeble ways his body can manage to move now now- push ups, jogging on the spot, a few reps with pathetically light weights, and he ends up drenched in sweat, trickling in his hair and spreading in damp patches under his arms, but he’s still shivering, he’s still frozen inside.

He scalds his mouth on black coffee, herbal teas, cocoa- downs them as soon as they’re poured, hands pressed desperately against the mug. He gets a burn on the roof of his mouth and blisters on his tongue that leave him lisping; he goes for days unable to taste anything.

But he stays cold.

Until he finds the one thing that works, the only thing that works.

So Billy reaches for the phone. Dials the only number he knows off by heart.

And he swears that he feels better just from hearing Steve’s cheery ‘hey!' 

It thaws him enough that he can stutter out a couple of sentences, a few pleasantries forced out from behind chattering teeth, and that’s all Steve needs to hear, all it takes for him to say that he’s coming over.

Then Billy just has to wait, sit and wait and shiver on the couch until Steve’s coming through the door, bundled in a sweater and a scarf and with the brightest smile on his face and a steaming pizza box in his hands.

He looks a little sheepish, blushes when he says, “I didn’t know if you’d already eaten…”

Steve hands over the box and Billy has to stifle a moan at the rush of heat that surges through him, nothing to do with the heat of the cardboard and everything to do with the way Steve’s fingers brush against his.

Because it’s Steve.

Because Steve is the only thing. The only thing that can bring any warmth back to Billy when he gets like this. 

And Steve’s warmth doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t burn or scald or sting.

Instead, it fills Billy and warms him from the heart out. It floods through him, chasing away the ice and the cold and the wrong and replacing it with sunshine and light and good.

So Billy presses himself against Steve as they sit together on the ugly, battered couch, pizza box long forgotten on the table. He presses their arms and thighs together and feels Steve’s heat reach him even through all the layers of cotton and wool, sure and solid, until Billy’s skin is tingling with it.

He pulls Steve onto him, gets Steve’s arms wrapped around his neck and Steve’s legs onto his lap. Feels that weight all over him, keeping him secure, keeping him grounded, making him feel protected. And then Steve surrounds him with words too, words like ‘I’ve got you’ and ‘baby’ and ‘I love you’, and tears fill Billy’s eyes for a whole other reason, spilling down his cheeks until Steve kisses them away, 

So Billy runs his hands under Steve’s sweater, under his shirt, pressing skin to skin wherever he can reach, unable to hold back the moans this time. And Steve touches back, his fingertips blazing trails of heat along Billy’s back, against his cheeks, into his hair.

And then Billy presses their lips together and drinks Steve in, finally tasting that sunshine and that light when Steve’s tongue touches his. He fills with heat and brightness as Steve moans against his mouth, as Steve’s hands rake through Billy’s curls, as their kisses grow deeper, more urgent, drawing out little shivers of pleasure that seem to come right from Billy’s core. 

And that night Billy sleeps under Steve’s arm, sleeps with Steve wrapped around him, with Steve’s lips still pressing a kiss into his hair and their fingers still interlaced.

And Billy is warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Self Harm References- Billy presses himself against a heater to try to get warm, even though it burns him,  
> He also forces himself to drink hot liquids that burn his mouth.


End file.
